Big Sound

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Big Sound

Through a short labyrinth, you follow him into what looks like a futuristic bomb shelter - a rounded room with high slanting walls, an observation deck on one side, and chairs that spiral out from the center. Sitting down, you note what appear to be tiny lights hanging from the ceiling - until you realize they're speakers. The room is jammed with speakers: they protrude from the corners, are mounted like heat ducts in the floor, and rise to form a monolith in the middle of the room.

You have entered Audium, a house-sized musical instrument of 169 speakers - a unique performance space where sound assumes spatial, kinetic, and communicative qualities. Started with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts 20 years ago, Audium remains one of San Francisco's undiscovered treasures, a testament to a little-explored direction for music and sound. As the man behind the curtain, Shaff is Audium's co-designer and promoter, ticket taker, and sole performer. Twice a week, he "plays" the space for live audiences.

"I work from two fundamental concepts," Shaff explains. "The idea that the motion of sound can be an element of musical composition, and that the space itself is an essential part of the work."

The lights dim to black, and the show begins. Using prerecorded noises and Audium's technological capabilities, Shaff silently creates tactile, multidimensional aural sculptures from his darkened post. They range from airy soundscapes to claustrophobic aural nightmares. At times, cartoonish chirps ping-pong madly around the room, and everyday noises - planes overhead, pipes in the walls - transmogrify into short, atonal passages of synthesized music. Late in the program, a freight train shudders through the room.